Sir, – Ireland is wealthy, when measured by the 2023 exchequer revenues per head of population. Ireland’s Government has €16,700 to spend per head of population every year, as compared to €12,200 in the UK, €10,900 in Sweden and €5,600 in Spain.
Yet we have a housing crisis, a hospital and healthcare crisis, a policing crisis and, more recently, a viability crisis for many indigenous small businesses driven by the enormous increases in policy-driven costs.
None of these issues seem to be getting closer to any resolution. These crises are not driven by a lack of resources but by a lack of the efficient use of the huge resources that are available.
We all know the culture of inefficiency that permeates much of our public services and how the vast majority of people working in these services would like to work more efficiently. This inefficiency is driven by poor management from the very top, by the lack of willingness to take the difficult decisions to create the required change. It is enabled by us, the public, not holding our decision makers to account for how they spend our money.
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It should be normal for the terms “value for money”, “efficiency” and “productivity” to be an everyday part of the national discussions within the media, in order that the enormous waste of resources that is exemplified by the cost increases in the national children’s hospital and the new Dáil bike sheds are not normalised. It is no longer acceptable for politicians to be proud of how much money they raise instead of how much value is provided by the money they manage.
We must start holding our public representatives to account for how well they manage our resources for the benefit of all. We must judge our political, public and civil services on the value they provide with the money they cost.
With an election pending, this is the time to make it clear that we expect much more than excuses when it comes to how our national resources are managed. – Yours, etc,
MARK WHEELER,
Dublin 14.